Blackbirds and Wishes
by nojudgementjustlove
Summary: I thought it ill- treatment, frankly sad, that no one wish on blackbirds. There's never just one of them. So I figured, simple math: If I made a wish, and there were more than one blackbird there, then I have a greater chance of my wish coming true. So what I did was wish that Spencer would see me. AU: Spoby


BLACK BIRDS AND WISHES

Flightless birds

There were so many things I wanted to say to her.

"_I'm sorry, I love you. Please stay."_

But in the moment when it mattered most I said nothing. I watched her leave.

I watched her walk out of my life.

_2 years, 4 months earlier…_

_Fourth period, English and he can't keep his eyes off of her. She is supposed to be in the class he's sitting in right now but instead she's outside, her legs folding, her skirt just shy of her knees. She is on the lawn, completely immersed in her book, the world happening around her._

_The light plays with her hair. She tangled up within it. She's an angel._

_The thing he loves most about watching her though, is watching her smile- it so unexpected, it kind of creeps up on him. But when she smiles, it's the most brilliant thing. So he waits for those moments, when he knows that that glimmer in her eyes would precede that smile and for a moment, the craziest things happen- like leaves falling and people laughing and the world makes sense with things like a stranger sitting across the lawn's smile._

…_._

"_What are you reading?" _

_She doesn't answer. Her eyes draw lines across the page. _

_He adjusts the backpack on his shoulder, and makes a slight turn to leave but then thinking of how the world made sense when she smiled and maybe her smile could help him make sense of his world, he decided to try again. _

_He sits right down next to her, reading the line she seemed caught up in …" even death has a heart." He quotes and she turns to look at him. For a moment, her eyes searched his for some sort of recognition in his face, but finding none, shifts uncomfortably before closing the book shut. _

_He gets up when she does, finding it amusing how she seemed to have just become aware of the day and of who she was. She is dusting off her skirt as though she is disgusted by having sat on the lawn, as though her body had sat there without her permission. _

_He is wrapped up in his amusement, when she turns sharply. "What?" she demands_

"_Nothing." He smiles. She stands her head sideways, her hair falling in long strides and for a moment she just watch him and he realizes the game is no longer in his hand and his timidity is suddenly rising. Because more mesmerizing than her smile, is her eyes and they carried a story which he cannot help but be intrigued by, magnetized to. _

"_What?" she asks again, breaking the silence. _

"_Nothing." He stammers, suddenly short of air …" The Book Thief…I like it."_

_She has withdrawn again into her silent state, but makes a show of putting on her backpack. She raises an eyebrow as if to ask "what about it?" and then turns to leave._

_Willing to do anything to continue the conversation, in case he never had the guts to do again, he says "Wouldn't have pegged you for the Book Thief kind of girl."_

_At that, she swings around "You don't know me."_

_He smiles. _

"_That's annoying."_

"_What is?" _

"_Your laugh."_

"_I wasn't laughing…I was smiling." He takes a step closer to her "…and I do know you. You're Spencer Hasting."_

_Spencer starts to say something but suddenly stops, instead exhaling a deep exhausted sigh. "I have English."_

_He smiles again "English was last period."_

…_._

_Toby tucks the 'Book Thief' between a Leo Tolstoy novel, next to Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' on his book shelf. He had greeted his mother on his reaching home before heading to the tiny room in the tiny apartment they had moved into just last year. Picture of places they had travelled littered the wall, pictures of the places he wished he could have gone- Paris, Rome, Hawaii, the Caribbean plastered up there too. An old guitar laying in the corner reminding him of his vow to get back to playing, a blackboard that had oddly been in the apartment when they got there, a bed, and an old grandfather rocking chair which had no sentimental meaning other that he thought it added to the general theme of his room. This was it. It was home. _

Sitting in the old rocking chair, creaking under his weight, he pulled it closer to the typewriter ("a sacrifice more than a gift" as his mother had put it). For a moment, he bathes in the sunlight ushering through his window, capturing the moments of the day.

He then begins to type, slowly at first, then as usual the words came naturally to him:

_I_ _thought it ill- treatment, frankly sad, that no one wish on blackbirds. _

_There's never just one of them._

_So I figured, simple math: If I made a wish, and there were more than one blackbird there, then I have a greater chance of my wish coming true._

So what I did was wish that Spencer would see me. (I know right. Typical teenager. I could have wished for world peace or for the cure to cancer but instead I asked for a girl to see me.)

_I wished that I could know the story hidden in her eyes, in her smile. I wished that I knew her mannerism and pains. I wish I knew her voice and her scent. _

_Selfishly too, I wished that I could be the brightness in her life and that I could somehow be her solace, her safe haven._

_I saw something extra- ordinary in her eyes today, a sparkle of something exciting. She doesn't even know that buried deep within her is greatness. I wanted to tell her but what fun would that be._

_So instead I'll keep wishing on blackbirds._

_That I could be part of the story._


End file.
